


The Rhythm of Sound

by TheatricalAssassin



Category: Transformers - All Media Types
Genre: Gen, Rhythm Games, Slice of Life, Video & Computer Games, downtime
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-17
Updated: 2017-04-17
Packaged: 2018-10-16 18:25:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,738
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10576971
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheatricalAssassin/pseuds/TheatricalAssassin
Summary: A challenge is issued and a lesson needs to be learned. That one does not challenge Soundwave to rhythm games, because he will destroy you.





	

**Author's Note:**

> For a Fledgling on Tumblr

8:00 AM, PDT 

Soundwave wasn’t much of a morning person. Getting up this early was always a trial in of itself. He laid on his berth, praying to Primus that he didn’t need to get up today. The Autobots doubled down on their efforts to prevent them from getting literally anything done, leading the Decepticons to have to double down on their efforts to get information about energy sources before the Autobots have a chance to do anything about it. They couldn’t be everywhere at once so this means it’s a game of misdirection, and right now Soundwave’s motivation to be awake was winning that game. After what seemed like eternity he swung his legs off the berth, fought the desire to sleep just a little longer, and walked over to his desk to see if he’d been sent anything while he slept. 

In his inbox he found: A forwarded copy of a daily report from a scout, A Reply All from Thundercracker that simply had a jpeg of a golden retriever, A reminder from Hook that his yearly physical was coming up and that he needed to let him know about any new accommodations needed, and an notification from Frenzy that showed an jpeg of a Roomba with a knife taped to the top of it declaring the automated vacuum cleaner’s name as “Stabby”. Good to see that the world hadn’t ended yet. He looked back at Hook’s message, it was probably time to get that over with. The sooner the better. He opened up the reply and began typing. 

_ Hook,  _

_ There are no new accommodations, however after the Cybertonium Incident I would like to have an examination for my T-Cog and all related systems. I would prefer if I could see you as soon as possible for this.  _

_ Communications Officer Soundwave _

His digits tapped against the keyboard in a specific rhythm, a rhythm that he could listen to for eons, the sound brought a sense of comfort to him and was the only reason he tolerated writing his reports. That and Megatron’s lax standards to how they are to be written. He sent Hook his reply, knowing the mech he’ll respond rather quickly but he would have time to grab some energon before getting to work. 

8:30 AM, PDT

Getting to breakfast early was always a blessing, less noise and more rations to go around. He grabbed a cube of energon and sat down at a table with his back to the windows and looked through his datapad. One new alert from Hook, just a appointment date and asking for confirmation. Just as he was about to confirm the date and time he felt a bump against his leg. Looking down at the floor he sees Stabby, with a note attached to the top of it. Gently plucking the note from service droid he held it up for closer inspection, turns out it’s a message from Frenzy. 

_ In the rec room you’ll find the ultimate challenge.  _

In the rec room? Curiosity piqued he quickly finished his breakfast and headed down to see what “challenge” awaited him. Walking back into the corridor Soundwave noticed the whirring sounds followed him. He looked down to find Mr Stabby following him, cleaning as it went and beeping occasionally. Soundwave quietly hoped that no one stepped on it, for Frenzy’s sake. He knows how it feels when a item of great importance is damaged or worse destroyed. He would have to figure out how to make it more readily apparent to larger mechs so that no one steps on it accidentally. He rounded the corner into the rec room and saw...

Nothing. Perhaps he got here too early? He had no pressing issues to attend to so Soundwave saw no harm in waiting until Frenzy came by. 

11:00 AM PDT

The humans have interesting games, games that the Decepticons had picked up to play during downtime. A popular one for a while was _Piano Tiles_ , the game required a great deal of skill and it was one that they were all happy to play, someone had even put up a scoreboard for it. Occasionally Soundwave would get up and update his high score and sit back down and continue playing. He didn’t know who put it there, but whenever you updated it to reflect your new score it would move you up or down the rankings. For this game, he dominated, holding the number one spot and has yet to be dethroned. Another popular one was _Flappy Bird_ , that is until Megatron banned it after a thrown datapad almost crashed into his helm, not many were sad to see it go.

After a while he got bored of the mobile game and made his way over to the DDR machine. Out of all the games they have collectively acquired to put in here it was the most popular. Whenever there was a group of Decepticons who were all off duty, chances are they were here. The scoreboard was also connected to the machine and would automatically update everyone’s high scores, and while he waited might as well try to beat Skywarp’s high score. 

Stepping through the songs he finally found the one he was looking for. Elemental Creation. He set it to the hardest difficulty and grabbed the bar behind him, each note came and he stepped on the associated square for it. Clutching the bar he barely had time to step on one he had to quickly bring his pede down onto another. Moving so fast he could feel the exhaustion creeping up on him, had he needed to breathe Soundwave would be breathless. The song ended and he slid down to sit on the pad. A feeling of regret crept upon him, but he stood to see what he scored. Upon looking at the screen Soundwave beamed, his first try and he managed to score a A. A little more practice and he might be able to AAA it. 

But that was for later, with how much that just absolutely wore him out, it was time to play literally anything else.  

1:45 PM PDT

Soundwave heard a couple of the Combaticons talking, looking up from his game he saw Vortex and Swindle carrying a large box. They were clearly  _ trying _ to be careful but if how unsteady Vortex looked was any indication there was only hope that this didn’t end in tragedy. They got to the maybe a few steps into the rec room before sitting it down, behind them Rumble and Frenzy came tromping in with the biggest smiles on their faces. 

“I hope this is worth it” Vortex muttered 

“It absolutely  _ is _ .” Swindle purred 

They slid the box towards an empty space and promptly opened it up. They stared into the box for a moment then turned back to Rumble and Frenzy.

“Do either of you have a knife on you?” Swindle asked, when Rumble gave him his knife the con artist gave them a small thank you and began destroying the box. 

Rumble and Frenzy got more and more excited as the two Combaticons ripped the box to shreds. Soundwave realized that this was a new game they were bringing in, silently he wondered to himself what kind of game it is. He watched them set it up and do a few test runs to make sure that it worked. He couldn’t see what they were doing as both Vortex and Swindle were in the way. Soundwave sauntered over to the four mechs to find out what was what, and more importantly to find out what game this is. 

It was a drum game, and the two were going at it... although not very good. That didn’t stop the smiles on their faces and the trash talking between them. Oh yes, this was going to cause  _ many fights _ . 

“Oh man!” Rumble said excited “Boss is gonna love this!”

“Affirmative” Soundwave said, earning a yelp of surprise from the two cassetticons

“Boss you’re here!” Rumble said

“Correct, Frenzy informed me that I have been challenged.” 

Rumble looked at Frenzy with utter confusion, his brother just shrugged his shoulders sheepishly “I didn’t think it’d take so long” He admitted 

“Query: Is this the game you challenged me to?” Soundwave pointed at the machine, Swindle and Vortex chatting about their scores and how to improve them. 

“This is the one!” Frenzy said with a devious smile “And we’re gonna play, Azure Arbitrator!”

Swindle and Vortex were more than happy to step aside, handing off the drumsticks to the duo. 

“20 credits says Frenzy will win” Vortex whispers to Swindle

“I’ll take those odds” Swindle replies with a smile 

Soundwave gave the drum a few hits and once he was ready he picked a song. He wasn’t  _ quite _ sure how this game worked but it being a rhythm game, Soundwave was confident that he could figure it out. The game loaded up while Frenzy dragged over a chair, he looked at his comrade trying to climb up the seat in time to start playing without significant penalty. Steadying himself he took the sticks and was ready to rock and roll. 

The real trick here would be taking his skills from DDR to this but Soundwave was sure that he had this. He’d heard the song before, Yugen no ran, and he hoped that would give him some sort of an edge. 

The beat started, and he followed with it. Hitting the drum as the colors dictated, quickly the notes pushed together faster and faster. The beating of the drum quickened as Soundwave moved in perfect harmony, the pace picking up faster than he expected but he was keeping up. Faster and faster he could feel the rhythm in his systems. Perfect after perfect came after every other hit, the brum of the drums rapidly filling the air as both him and Frenzy gave themselves to the rhythm. With one last flurry of beats the song ended and gave them their scores, Soundwave had the higher score. 

“HA I SLAGGING KNEW IT AHAHAHAHAHAA” Swindle yelled excited “PAY UP!” he continued to laugh as Vortex grumpily forked over his credits 

“Thank you for bringing this onboard.” He gave them both a pat on the head, the cassettes looking past him to the game he understood that they wanted to play. “Rumble, Frenzy, initiate Operation: Dominate Taiko Drum Master” 

**Author's Note:**

> Within a week Soundwave would be [this guy](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-T2wclU-pmc) or [this guy](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-OOj1kJDpRs) idk


End file.
